Perception of millennials toward humanitarian organisations : how millennials perceive international humanitarian organisations, their marketing methods and how does it impact their donations?

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Perception of Millennials toward humanitarian

organisations

How Millennials perceive international humanitarian organisations, their marketing methods and how does it impact their donations?

Bachelor Project submitted for the degree of

Bachelor of Science HES in International Business Management

by

Elisa CHÉDEL

Bachelor Project Advisor:

Aurélie LAFORET, HEG Professor

Geneva, 3rd_{of June 2019}

Haute école de gestion de Genève (HEG-GE) International Business Management

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Declaration

This Bachelor Project is submitted as part of the final examination requirements of the Haute école de gestion de Genève, for the Bachelor of Science HES-SO in International Business Management.

The student accepts the terms of the confidentiality agreement if one has been signed. The use of any conclusions or recommendations made in the Bachelor Project, with no prejudice to their value, engages neither the responsibility of the author, nor the adviser to the Bachelor Project, nor the jury members nor the HEG.

“I attest that I have personally authored this work without using any sources other than those cited in the bibliography. Furthermore, I have sent the final version of this document for analysis by the plagiarism detection software stipulated by the school and by my adviser”.

Geneva, 3rd_{June 2019}

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Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to dearly thank Mrs. Aurélie Laforet, for supervising me through the whole journey of this paper. Her precious guidance and her patience led me to write with pride this essay.

I further want to express my gratitude to Mr. Xavier Huber, Crowdfunding project officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mrs. Marine Fleurigeon, Head of Loyalty Fundraising and Donor Care at Médecins Sans Frontières and Mrs. Laure Silacci, Advertising Manager and online fundraising at Terre des Hommes for giving me the opportunity to gain knowledge about marketing in their organisations.

Moreover, I would like to thank all the people who took the time to answer my survey, which enable my analysis to be rich in quantitative data.

Finally, a special thanks to Mr. Sebastian Cernadas, Mrs. Natalie Gerzner and Mrs. Juliette Lesourd for providing me with support and motivation.

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Executive Summary

Enterprises put special attention into communication and marketing. These two aspects are continuously evolving, transforming and adapting to better reach the expectations of a potential buyer. Especially for humanitarian organisations, there is no item to sell but the customer, in this instance: the donor needs to be understood in order to, again, not make a purchase but donate money. On the one hand, the customer is buying something, and on the other, he is giving. At the end of the day an enterprise and an organisation have the same goal, they both need funds to survive.

This research aims to understand the perception of Millennials towards humanitarian organisations and to address potential solutions for the pain points mentioned throughout the paper.

Qualitative data have been gathered by interviews with the organisations: International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières and Terre des Hommes. This method enables the reader to gasp example of the current situation regarding the different communication mediums used such as mailings to households, billboards, celebrity endorsement so and so forth to reach the different segment of the population. It also helped understanding how organisations cope with communication guidelines when regards to choosing a picture or a content for an advertisement. Several concepts have been mentioned like “death kilometer” and “information hierarchy” which are used in communication and can impact how the information is received by the recipient. Challenges were also mentioned such as the situation of the humanitarian market, new laws affecting not only marketing departments, but also entire organisations.

Quantitative data have been collected through a survey. The focus was made on Millennials living in the French part of Switzerland. 115 answers have been analysed and enable the reader to draw a picture of the situation vis-à-vis of Millennials. As results, at the exception of the 3 organisations interviewed, Millennials is split into two groups. The first one with 41% of the responses, people who already donated to an organisation, this group is then divided into occupations such as student, employees and unemployed people. The other 59%, the people who never donated to an organisation, were also divided by occupation, but the most interesting aspect is the reasons why they never donated. These latter were due to lack of financial means with the most answers, followed by mistrust toward organisations.

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The results of this thesis draw several recommendations based on transparency, communication and a new donation method which could be implemented in order to build solid relationships between potential donors and organisations.

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

NGO Non-governmental organisation

MSF Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without borders)

TdH Terre des Hommes

ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross

RFM Recency, Frequency, Monetary

EU European Union

HO Humanitarian organisation

ICRW International Committee for Relief to the Wounded

OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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List of Tables

Table 1: Marketing stages ... 12

Table 2: Donors age range and specificities ... 21

Table 3: Similarities and differences of the 3 interviews... 31

Table 4: Organisations using TWINT ... 52

Table 5: For TWINT donors ... 53

List of Figures

Figure 1: Evolution of medium of communication ... 13

Figure 2: Donors organizational chart ... 21

Figure 3: Ladder engagement ... 30

Figure 4: TWINT Swiss users ... 51

Figure 5: Current situation ... 55

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1. Introduction

1.1 Donations in Switzerland

1.85 Billion Swiss francs

1.85 Billion Swiss francs is the amount of donations in 2017 to non-for-profit Swiss organisations. This figure is the highest in history, at least for a decade, 1.1 billion was donated in 2003 and this amount did nothing but increase as in 2013 it was about 1.7 to finally reach the record of 1.85 billion in 2017. (ZEWO Foundation, 2017)

8 Swiss households over 10 donate

80% of Swiss households donated in 2017, in average 400 francs in the German-speaking part, 200 francs in the French-German-speaking region and 300 francs in Ticino per year (ZEWO Foundation 2017). Even in 2015, Switzerland was considered as a “donor country” as the percentage of donations regarding the total population was about 70% at that time. It was ranked third one in Europe. Compares to its peer in the EU, Switzerland did pretty good. Number 1 was the Nederland with 85%, number 2 Poland with 70%, France with 49% and closing the march with 19%, Spain.

(CERPhi, 2015)

1. Believing in the cause 2. Feeling grateful

3. Aligned with my personal values

According to the report on donations in Switzerland made by Swissfundraising in 2015, the three main reasons why people donate are the one mentioned above. Over 1’122 people interrogated, 91% responded that they believe in the cause, 86% they felt grateful and 78% said it was in harmony with their personal values (Swissfundraising, 2015). People donate to several purposes such as for human rights, disease research, disaster assistance, environment and animal protection and many other. As reported by ZEWO foundation in 2017, the three main matters, which people donate to are the following:

1. People with disabilities 2. Children and youth 3. Social aid and emergency

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Regarding methods of donations, it can be spread into 2 aspects the first one considered as “traditional channels” includes: payment slip, filling a form, and giving cash directly. The second aspect is known as “new channels” including: the organisation’s website, crowdfunding, via SMS or using a mobile application. Even though, there is a slight improvement from 0,5% in 2016 to 0,8% in 2017 (the percentage of donation through new channels regarding the total amount of donation per year), most donations are still done using traditional channels. (ZEWO Foundation, 2017)

Philanthropist, a person who seek to promote the welfare of others, especially by generous donation of money to good causes, but no only, by giving its time as well. As stated in the ZEWO report of 2017, over 300’000 people volunteer for social causes each year, providing 40 million hours of work. (ZEWO Foundation, 2017)

Now that the context for Switzerland is set, what about the Millennials in particular?

1.2 Millennials

Millennials, also called the “Y Generation”, is anyone who was born between 1980 and 2000. Many articles tried to describe this generation, but it is almost impossible to put everyone into the same box as there are many diversities within this particular age group. One criterion that we can all agree on, is the fact that Millennials are “digital natives” - a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and is familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age – they follow technological trends and jump from one to another very easily. (Elio Panese, 2015)

Several articles tried to tackle the aspect of Millennials at work, for example, and how to work with them. In one of the article, an interesting dimension was mentioned regarding Millennials : “It is as if the generation of Millennials has less need to adapt to the world, to normalize itself to it, that, on the contrary, the world adapts to them, unlike previous generations for which such a scenario would have been unimaginable. [..] They have thus, developed a culture of change by allowing the new generation to realize itself and show what it is worth, rather than locking it into narrow patterns.” (Elio Panese, 2015)

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This ”not like other generations” mentioned earlier, is daily proofed by how Millennials are described: (Daniel Newman, 2015)

• Communicate via social media platform and look on the Internet for reviews before buying an item, they trust other customer’s experiences. (78% of consumers made purchase based on company’s social media posts and consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on social media referral) (Pinnaclecart, 2015);

• Have a purchasing power and specific interests;

• Open to the world, willing to have a positive impact on the planet and its inhabitants;

• Concern about the environment;

• Want to have access to information, transparency;

• Don’t want to lose time looking for information, it should come to them; • “We are in this together” attitude.

Comparing Millennials with the previous generation, the X, the most pronounced difference is the change in mindset. People born from 1960 to 1980 grew up in a time where “what’s in it for me?” was the main concern. The generation mainly focus its effort into enriching themselves as they faced a shortage of jobs and it created the “me, me and me” attitude. Whereas, as the world is more and more connected, for Millennials the mindset is “I matter as an individual, I can make a difference, I’m going to make a difference’’. (Laurence Sarner, 2017)

As generations change from one to another, characteristics, desires, way of working, way to getting information and the use of technology in daily life change. That is why humanitarian organisations need to put special care in the way they communicate with the Y generation; donors and potential future contributors. As no operation on the field can be undertaken without financial aid, humanitarian organisations must constantly develop its communication technics and adapt its advertisements’ content to better reach the expectations of the current generation.

So, how enterprises adapt to Millennials regarding their marketing methods?

1.3 Marketing evolution

The concept of marketing evolved over time; the technics used in early 60s are not the same as the one used today. The sector did adapt to several aspects such as technological innovations and changes in the behaviour of individuals. Marketing did go through four principal stages, the first one Marketing 1.0 (1950-1970), so-called “product oriented” then, Marketing 2.0 (1970-1990) was more focused on the customer itself. Followed by stage 3, Marketing 3.0 (1990-2010) was value oriented and finally, Marketing 4.0 (2010-today) is all about listening and understanding society’s needs.

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The table below helps to understand the changes through the different stages and the aspects impacted. (Marketing 3.0 2018)

Table 1: Marketing stages

Source: Marketing 3.0 Nowadays, people are much more cornered about how a brand communicates with

them. It is not buying a simple product anymore, now it is more about building a relationship between an entity and a customer.

As a result of technological innovation, medium of communication also changed. The technics used to reach Baby boomers are not the same as to reach the generation Z.

Marketing stages Referred as Objective Type of value

Marketing 1.0 “Product oriented” To sell products

and services Functional

Marketing 2.0 “Consumer oriented” To satisfy and build _{customers’ loyalty} Functional and

emotional

Marketing 3.0 “Values oriented” To improve the

society

Functional and emotional

Marketing 4.0 “Network oriented”

To listen and understand society’s needs Functional, emotional and spiritual Marketing stages Guidelines for marketing management Key marketing concept Perception of the market from the

point of view of enterprises

Marketing 1.0 Features of the

product

Development of new products and

services General public Marketing 2.0 The positioning of products/services and the company

Differentiation Customer more informed

Marketing 3.0

The vision, mission and value of the

enterprise

Values The human being as a whole

Marketing 4.0

To exchange between the consumer and the

company

Customization The consumer more connected

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Figure 1: Evolution of medium of communication

Source: Emily Davis (2016)

An interesting shift is the one from paper to digital. Several years ago, people read newspapers, read books and sent mails, but now people can do all of it on their smartphone. They can read newspapers through a mobile application, read books via “e-books” and instead of writing mail they write e-mails. Smartphones are part of people’s lives, according to Deloitte (2018), “The smartphone is at the heart of our lives - Only 8% of the Swiss population do not have one yet.”. Focusing on the Millennials, more than 92% of them own smartphones and check it more than 150 times a day on average (Philip Perry, 2018). These figures emphasis that the best way to reach Millennials is through this device.

1.4 Humanitarian aid

Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the government and other institutions take over. The needy people include: the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars and famines. Humanitarian organisations are present during different events such as “natural disasters”, earthquakes or tsunami and “man-made disasters” like war. The primary goal of the humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity. In order to do so, humanitarian organisations need funding from different sources, it can come from states, other organisations, corporates and individuals.

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1.4.1 Humanitarian aid history

The most well-known origin story is the one from Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross. The Swiss businessman wanted to meet Napoleon III to talk about his business, so he travelled to northern Italy where Napoleon III was conducting a military campaign in 1859. On the road in Solferino, Dunant saw a battlefield with 40 thousand injured, and not enough medical personal to help. At that time doctors from a side of the battlefield wouldn’t help the “enemies” wounded soldiers. He decided to gather women from a village near by and to transport the injured to a safer place. Dunant could provide not only medical care, but also food and water to injured soldiers. He insisted on the fact that every soldier has the right to medical care, no matter who they are fighting for.

After returning to Geneva, Henri Dunant wrote a book called “A memory of Solferino”. Since the publication of the book in 1962, it had a tremendous success as Dunant was able to profoundly stir the emotions of his readers by bringing the battle and suffering into their homes, enabling them to understand the current barbaric state of war and treatment of soldiers after they were injured or killed. A little of a year later, The Red Cross was born. Five Geneva’s citizens, including Dunant, set up the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded (ICRW), later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The following year, 12 governments adopted the first Geneva Convention; a milestone in the history of humanity, offering care for the wounded, and defining medical services as "neutral" on the battlefield. Today, the Geneva’s convention has been signed by 196 countries all around the world and is applied in conflict situations.

In 1980, it was a turning point for humanitarian aid. Early attempts were in private hands and were limited in their financial and organisational capabilities. Since the 80s there were the medias support and the celebrity endorsement to address humanitarian crises. It helped in order to mobilize citizens and governments.

1.4.2 Humanitarian Principles

All humanitarian organisations’ activities are guided by four humanitarian principles. These latter are central to establishing and maintaining access to affected people, whether in a natural disaster or in a complex emergency, such as armed conflict.

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The four guiding principles followed by most humanitarian organisations are the following (Humanitarian aid, 2018 & OCHA, 2010):

1. Humanity

All humankind shall be treated humanely and equally in all circumstances by saving lives and alleviating suffering, while ensuring respect for the individual.

2. Neutrality

According to the Red Cross, neutrality means not to take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

3. Impartiality

Is the idea that humanitarian assistance must be impartial and does not discriminate based on nationality, race, gender, religion, political opinion or class. It must be based on the need alone. Priority most be given to the most urgent cases of distress.

4. Independence

According to the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, Humanitarian agencies must formulate and implement their own policies independently of government policies or actions. Humanitarian agencies, although there are auxiliaries in the humanitarian services and subject to the laws of their countries, must maintain their autonomy from political, economic, military or any other aspects and be able, at all times, to act in accordance with the humanitarian principles.

Aside from the four main humanitarian principles, there are other concepts, which were set from experiences with development assistance such as:

• Agencies should operate with respect to culture and custom from the country they work in;

• Humanitarian response should use local resources and capacities as much as possible;

• The participation of the beneficiaries should be encouraged; • Emergency response should strive to reduce future vulnerabilities; • Agencies should be accountable to both donors and beneficiaries;

• Humanitarian agencies should use information activities to portray victims as dignified human beings, not hopeless objects.

Although these principles are easy to understand in theory, they are very hard to apply in each situation. For instance, for some organisations it may be difficult to maintain their independence from their donors and not be confused in the field with governments who may be involved in the hostilities.

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The International Committee of the Red Cross has set the example for maintaining its independence and neutrality at the same time, by raising its funds from governments using separate annual appeals for headquarters costs and field operations.

1.5 Research Methodology:

This paper has been structures into two parts.

In order to respond to the following objectives; understand how humanitarian organisations (HO) do their marketing, the different medium of communication used to reach diverse audiences, the challenges that marketing departments may be facing regarding the shift in fundraising and to discover the link that HO have with the Y generation, qualitative data were gathered through interviews with three humanitarian organisations. These latter were International Committee of the Red Cross, Terre des Hommes and Médecins Sans Frontières. This approach enables the reader to get concrete examples and situations of what is currently done.

Regarding further objectives such as understand the perception of Millennials towards humanitarian organisations, the trustworthiness of these latter, the actual donation situation, the reasons behind why Millennials may not donate, and the sensitivity felt on certain pictures, quantitative data were collected through a survey. This method allows the reader to have a good representation of the perception of Millennials on organisations.

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2. Analysis

2.1 Interviews with organisations

Interviews with three major humanitarian organisations were scheduled; the International Committee of the Red Cross on the 7th_{of March 2019 [Appendix 2:ICRC Interview],}

Doctors without borders on the 13th_{of March 2019 [Appendix 3: MSF Interview] and}

Terre des Hommes on the 28th of March 2019 [Appendix 4: TdH Interview]. The purpose of these interviews was to get more knowledge about several aspects such as current donors’ age range, marketing methods used to reach the different segment of the population, guidelines to follow when choosing pictures and content for advertising and finally, the challenges that not only marketing departments, but also entire organisations could be facing. [Appendix 1: Interview’s guidelines]

2.1.1 Marketing Methods

Several methods of communication are used during marketing campaigns. Not all technics are valued in every campaign so each organisation’s marketing department plan ahead the type of campaign and the approach in order to be the most effective possible.

Types of Campaign:

a) Integrated campaign: aligning communication for visibility and fundraising to

ask for donations. This kind of campaign is extremely expensive as it uses different medium as Tv ads, radio announcement, that is why, it is done only once every 2 or 5 years. The planification depends on the strategy and the current financial situation of the organisation.

b) Donors acquisition: focusing only on asking for money, this campaign is done

on digital platform such as social media or on paper via emailing. No Ads on Tv or radio are done as it is costly. The goal is to communicate at a lower cost. From 2 to 5 times a year, this campaign is done.

c) Donors loyalty: writing to everyone falling into the “donors” category, meaning

people who gave once to a particular organisation to people donating thousand Swiss francs a year. This operation is done between 1 and 12 times a year, once again depending on the organisation’s strategy.

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2.1.2 Types of communication technics used:

In this section several methods of communication will be presented by category; “paper”, “media” and “others”, with an example for each in order to have a better understanding.

Category 1: Paper

Mailing: Organisations send leaflets to households all around Switzerland, the targeted

regions are chosen by the organisations. Each one can choose a Zip code and send to every address in this area for instance 1200 is for Geneva and 2000 is for Neuchâtel. Organisations have 3 choices; it can be sent to all households, half of them or only to specific zip codes in Switzerland. These mailings’ content includes; pictures, informative text about a specific cause and most of the time a “couponing” which is a small detachable piece of paper at the end of the letter in order to directly donate to the organisation. The leaflet can be in different material such as paper or in cardboard. Choosing cardboard can has a positive impact as people notice it in their mail box and it doesn’t get lost within other letters, whereas it can also have a negative impact, which happened to Terre des hommes, people were calling the office to complain about the fact that sending cardboard wasn’t eco-friendly. The purpose of this method is to send information and hope for donations. [Appendix 5: Mailing to households]

Emailing/mailing to donors: This technique is used to first; warmly thank the donor for

his/her previous donation, then it is used to inform. In these emailing, we can find all sorts of information such as ongoing projects (usually the one the donor gave money for), on future projects, the benefits for the persons in need and in order to directly donate money to the organisation a couponing may also be included. Generally, organisations tell a story about a family or an individual, pictures and testimonials are added to create an emotional impact on the reader. The nature of the mailing is more personal as it begins with Dear Mr. or Mrs. surname and typically ends with the signature of someone important as the Executive Director, Development Director or others. This technique is used to build strong relationship between the organisation and the donor. On one hand the organisation informs the donor, and on the other hand, the donor can trust the organisation as he/she knows how the money is used for. [Appendix 6: Emailing/mailing to donors]

Billboard: This technic is used to boost the exposure of the organisation’s message

thanks to the size and the placement of the poster. Generally, billboards content is a picture, a short phrase and a call to action, which could be a phone number to call or a website to check it out.

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For a better result, these placards are posted in areas where a lot of people passes everyday such as at the train station or on crowded streets. The more people notice it, the better. [Appendix 7: Billboard for Terre des Hommes]

Category 2: Media

Video: The International Committee of the Red Cross produced several short videos of

2 minutes to communicate a situation or to raise awareness from the public. On its YouTube channel the ICRC posted 5 months ago, a video called “The one gift Santa can’t deliver”. It has already 126K views. The video staged a man wearing Santa Claus clothes walking around a city in war and destroyed by bombings and armed groups of people. In the background we can hear a Christmas song piled up with riffles noises. As Santa walks through the streets he sees tanks, bodies on the ground, buildings on fire and other chaotic elements. He goes into a building and as the music fades away, he walks closer to a little girl sitting on the ground. We can see on this girl’s face that she is scared and alone. The man gets down to the girl, takes her hand and disappear suddenly. The scene is followed by the message “The only gift some children want this Christmas is their family” and then we see this very girl happy with clean clothes jumping into her mother’s arms with an ICRC employee on the background. A second message follows “Every year we reunite hundreds of families torn apart by conflict, migration and natural disaster”. [Appendix 8: Images of the video “The only gift Santa can’t deliver]

Social media: Organisations usually use social media to reach directly its followers and

to inform them on several subjects. The content on these platforms can be pictures, texts and videos.

TV ads: As it is costly, organisations do not use this method often, but it is an efficient

way to reach potential donors. Generally used in time of emergency, Chaîne du Bonheur did a Tv ad asking for donation for the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in 2018.

Website: Organisations put directly on their website updates about situations to inform

donors and any other visitors on their pages.

Mobile Application: Categorized as “humanitarian games” on Play Store or Apple

Store, anyone who download the application will be in the shoes of a kid, with his family, hiding in his house from armed groups. The game stages riffles noises and shouting to make it real. Questions are asked throughout the game and depending on the choice of the gamer, the situation will evolve. The goal is to escape the situation alive.

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Category 3: Others

Calling: MSF for instance, uses this method to keep in touch with donors and to inform

them about one or several current projects the organisation is working on. They also take advantage of this opportunity to talk about crises or diseases, which aren’t in the media or forgotten.

Street-fundraising: Generally working in team, the street fundraisers (it can be internal

employees of the organisation or an external agency) stand in busy areas and approach passers-by to persuade them to donate money to the charitable cause he/she is promoting. They will briefly explain the work of the charity and try to engage the person in a dialogue about the issues the charity focuses on (animals, children, the environment). The fundraiser will then move the conversation towards asking for a financial contribution (via Direct debit), usually a regular monthly pledge. The potential donor will then have to fill in a form with his/her personal information and bank account number if the person is interested in donating money to this organisation.

Celebrity endorsement: It is a type of communication, which a celebrity speaks in the

favour of an organisation. One of the most well-known examples is the world-famous actress Angelina Jolie being the ambassador of UNICEF and UNHCR. The use of such technic makes the organisation’s name stands out from the others and improve the phenomenon so-called “Ad recall”, which makes someone remember the organisation’s advertisement and links it to their favourite celebrity, which could result to a donation from a fan (Kali Kraft, 2018). People refers to influencer they know, and trust. Unfortunately, the downsides of this methods are; the cost of endorsing a celebrity and the impact on the organisation if a scandal occurs with the endorsed superstar.

Ads on public transports: As an example, Médecins Sans Frontières used a tramway

in Geneva as billboard in 2017. [Appendix 9: MSF ad on tram]

Attending festival: Several well-known humanitarian organisations attend festival and

social events in order to raise awareness on a cause. For instance, MSF did attend the “Paléo” festival in Nyon in 2011. A stall was installed and people at the event could discover “Haiti, the permanent emergency” exhibition as well as receiving souvenirs with MSF logo printed on. (Paléo, 2011)

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2.1.3 Types of donors

Throughout the interviews different types of donors were clearly identified. First, they can be separated by “private” and “public” contributors.

Figure 2: Donors organizational chart

Deciding to focus on the individual group, two kinds of donors can be distinguished.

Table 2: Donors age range and specificities

As showed on the table above, several aspects are very different from one type of donor to another one.

Measures 60-80 years old 20-30 years old

How many organisations do they

donate to?

1-2 4-5

Amount of money donated (in average

per year)

300-600 CHF 20CHF

Frequency of the

donation Regularly Spontaneously

Cause chosen for

donation Not specific Specific

Method of donation _{organisation’s website, calling}Payment slip, on the

Payment slip, on the organisation’s website, mobile

application

Donation of Money Money, time & resources (clothes, food)

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Note that the donor in between these two categories, from 30 to 60 years old, are part of the financial resources of organisations, however, they are not in the scope of this paper, that is way they are not represented on the table above.

2.1.4 Segmentation Methods

Segmenting donors by different aspects is a useful method to identify groups of donors for special treatment (Optimove, 2017). It allows the organisation to target specific groups with communication that are much more relevant for them. The two first methods are used when the donors are already in the database of the organisation and the last one, brokers, is a technique to reach potential donors.

1. RFM method

RFM stands for Recency, since the first donation, Frequency, how many times a donor donated for the organisation and finally Monetary, defined by how much a donor donated in total. For instance, Jim who gave 20 CHF in 2015 and never gave anymore won’t receive the same kind of information or via the same medium as Marie who is a regular donor for over 10 years.

2. Scoring method

In the database each donor has a number from 1 to 9 attributed regarding the amount they donate, the frequency, and other aspects. Score 1 is for someone, who donated a significant amount of money for a long period of time and score 8 or 9 could be for someone who donated a small amount of money only once. The organisation could plan to send emails to all the donors who has the score 1 to 3 and maybe reactivate the one with the number 8 and 9. Different way of communication depending on the donor’s score.

3. Brokers

Any organisation can contract an external agency so called “brokers”, which will find an ideal profile for them based on certain criteria that the organisations choose. The criteria can be someone who has children, who has already donated to an organisation, and other aspects.

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2.1.5 Communication guidelines

Using any kind of medium mentioned early in the document, e.g. billboard or text on the organisation’s website, the message is key. The way of giving information needs to be considerate and written very carefully.

Therefore, guidelines are created in order to communicate without contradicting any humanitarian principles neither offending any party. Examples of guidelines, which need to be followed by any employee who choose a picture for an advertisement on the behalf of the organisation, are the following:

• The pictures chosen should not undermine or degrade the image of the people photographed;

• No shocking pictures should be used;

• A consent needs to be signed by the person photographed in order to allow the usage of the picture;

• The picture needs to reflect the reality, the use of photoshop is unacceptable and should not be used in order to stress the sorrow of a situation or of the person photographed;

• Do not use the person as an object to enhance pity; • The children’s rights need to be protected.

Plus, some organisations only use “internal pictures”, which means that the pictures use for marketing purposes, for example, are images which were taken on the field by employees from these particular organisations or photographs working in collaboration with them. No portrait will be chosen randomly from the Internet for an advertisement. Every photo used for commercial purposes are examine internally by an adequate department and it must make sure the picture intended to be used checks all the criteria mentioned before. Further aspects need to be considered, such as systematically double checking the sources, figures and data when choosing the content for an advertisement. And finally, the information should not include any personal opinion from the writer in order to preserve neutrality and impartiality of the content.

According to an article on The Guardian (2018), the increasing number of “negative news” implying crimes, natural disasters, economic crisis, so and so forth. in the newspapers, on social media or on television for instance, cause people to reasonably assume that violence rate in the world does nothing but increase every day, whereas it’s not necessarily the case. Due to these pieces of information, most people tend to say things like “Why should I vote? It’s not going to help,” or “I could donate money, but there’s just going to be another kid who’s starving next week.”

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The fact that they are constantly exposed to negative news, impacts their view of the world, which at the end impact their point of view on organisations for doing enough in countries where they operate.

Yet, there is controversy in the way of interpreting news. Organisations, which try to communicate by showing positive information and pictures, using children smiling for instance, rather than showing unhealthy kids on their advertisement.

Unfortunately, in some cases, people will translate the advertisement as “We can clearly see that these kids are happy and don’t need my money!”, which leads people to stop donating money or never begin to.

2.1.6 Relation between death and distance

The term “Death kilometre” or “principle of proximity” is generally used in journalism. The idea is that the information on an event has a different level of importance depending on the closeness of the reader of an article, or the audience of tv news. The phenomenon of closeness is generally divided in 4 axes; geography, temporal, affective and societal/socio professional (Eric Cobut, 2018). [Appendix 10: Death-kilometer concept_fr]

In 2000, a famous psychology professor, Jacques- Philippe Leyens did an experience on the perception of information. (Nicolas M, 2019)

He split Belgian volunteers into 2 groups, and gave each group the same information to read, an article about a building on a fire. In the first group, he announced that the fire had taken place in Belgium, the second in England. Then he asked each group what emotions they had felt.

The first group expressed human-specific emotions such as grief, hopelessness, or guilt and it was much more emotional. The second group expressed primary emotions, such as fear or pain. Depending on the “distance” of an event, kilometric or cultural , we do not feel the same empathy for the victims, because we do not evaluate the gravity of the facts in the same way.

To give a recent example, the cathedral “Notre-Dame” in Paris, France has been partially destroyed by fire on the 15th_{of April 2019. There was no death, nor injured but the video}

showing the peak of the cathedral being attacked by fire and finally falling on the remains has been on every media around the world for at least a week. It looked like nothing else mattered. In addition, approximately 1 Billion Euro were promised in order to rebuild the monument from big groups such as LVMH, L’Oréal, Total, Pinault and from citizens.

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These spontaneous donations didn’t achieve unanimity as the public opinion was showing its disagreement and furiousness with the situation through social media. [Appendix 11: Public opinion_fr] (Joanne Massard, 2019)

However, on the 21th of April, 6 days after the incident in Paris, another disaster happened. This one was further away, in Sri Lanka. Eight terrorist suicide bombings exploded simultaneously in different part of the country in Hotel and churches.

This event caused more than 350 deaths, and many sever injured, but the news and people on social media talked about it for far less days than the fire in Paris. [Appendix 12: Information hierarchy_fr]

This phenomenon can be caused by 2 parties. The first one is people. People were less affected by the bombings as the incident happened far for them, the culture and the language are different, so they felt less close from the victims. The other party is the media. The term “information hierarchy” is usually used in media. It is the classification and prioritisation given to various pieces of information on several support as the newspaper, breaking news on TV or on a website. Every news is classified and depending on its “score” the story will go on the front page or on 5th _{page of a newspaper}

for instance. The score is defined as following:

• Importance: the relevance of the story, a tsunami in Japan won’t have the same importance as the union of two celebrities in the Bahamas. The reader chooses the importance of the article directly when looking at a newspaper’ front page, which leads to the second aspect to define a score, sales.

• Sales: the more interesting the story is for the reader; the more chances he/she will buy the newspaper or keep watching the news.

• Target: the reader needs to be taken into account, an article about football won’t get the attention of someone who reads the newspaper “The financial times”. • Originality: the less common a story is, the more it will draw attention from the

public. That is why journalists try to be the first to cover a scoop.

The four mentioned aspects change from one story to another one, media try to get the crispier ones in order to keep readers and audiences entertained.

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2.1.7 Zewo standards

The Zewo foundation has been created in order to enhance donors trust and monitor Swiss charities. The foundation provides 21 standards covering different aspects such as ethics and integrity, transparency, efficient use of funds, accountability as well as fundraising and communication. Any charities having the Zewo seal, proves that this latter has been monitored and meet the 21 standards. It also ensures donors that donations will be used effectively, economically and for the designated purpose. It makes certain to provide true and fair financial reporting and transparent information to anyone who would look for them. That is why most Swiss organisations has the ZEWO seal as it is recognized in Switzerland and ensures relatability. Regarding the international level, there is no such seal existing, however a similar concept can be found in different countries like “Don en confiance” in France and “Charities Review Council” in the United States.

2.1.8 Challenges

In this section, several challenges will be introduced not only impacting the marketing department, but also the entire organisation.

• The right content

As explained earlier, choosing the right pictures and the right content for advertisement needs to be carefully decided and in alignment with the communication guidelines and core values of the organisation. A right balance needs to be found between positive pictures, people smiling in order to show the change the organisation with the support of the donors can make, and with the reality of the situation and showing that donations are needed. Another aspect to take into account is the fact that Switzerland has officially 4 languages such as Swiss German, French, Italian and Romansh. It adds a difficulty in creating billboards or communicating as everything should be translated into at last the 3 main languages – Swiss German, French and Italian. It generates not only cost, but it is also time consuming so when doing an ad, the language needs to be thought carefully in advance.

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• Donations / Crowdfunding

This aspect generates different challenges. The first one is to ensure enough resources for the future as 60+ years donors give regularly to one or two organisations with a fairly big amount of money, Millennials give to several organisations (up to 5) and donate irregularly a much smaller amount.

Another problem is the trust put in organisations, as a part of Millennials mistrust organisations, they are reductant to donate and ask for transparency and more information on how the donations are allocated. One more challenging aspect is the change from paper and calling communication to digital one. It may impact the “human” side of communication.

• People who wants to replace NGOs.

Due to the mistrust in organisations about how the donations are allocated, some Millennials decided to take things into their own hands. Jérôme Jarre, 28, is a young French entrepreneur and famous social media influencer. He became famous through social media, Snapchat which enable users to send pictures and messages only available for a short period of time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. And through Vine, a short-form-video-hosting service on which users shared six-second-long videos. Beginning by doing funny video, gaining followers (reaching now 15 million followers across the world) and increasing its influence on these platforms, the young entrepreneur decided to use the notoriety he had to make the world a better place. He used social media to reach its followers and to make things happen. He had the feeling that NGOs weren’t doing anything, at least not enough for him, so he decided to do it by himself…with the help of his followers. To give an example, Mr. Jarre, on the 15th_of

March 2017 he motivated his followers to donate money in order to delivery 60 tonnes of food in Somalia, where more than 3 million people suffer from hunger. (Merwane Mehadji, 2017) After that some celebrities showed their support on social media and the creation of an online pool, the cause reached about 2 million USD in just a few days. The #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia hashtag has been used all over social media to draw attention of the airline company, with social pressure, agrees to charter a plane in Somalia as this latter is the only one that connects to the country. The airline company responded positively to the demand as on the 29th_{of March a plane full of water and food}

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As the merchandise arrived at destination, Jerome Jarre didn’t know what to do with all these supplies, he then decided to unite forces with an NGO already on the site, ARC (American Refugee Committee) in order to allocate resources more efficiently. One day after the delivery, the French men gave news on the project as he promised to be transparent, he posted tweets and pictures on his Twitter account reminding that all of this was possible thanks to the support of his followers and people who believed in his cause. [Appendix 13: Follow up Jerome Jarre] The challenge of this willingness of taking matters into someone’s hands can generates complications as donations needs to be allocated efficiently, planification and coordination need to be settle before going on site and lastly, the aid cannot be given without the consent of the country’s government, which is sometimes complicated to get. That is why organisations exist, professionals knowing what they do and how to do it are sent on site and are managing the operations in order to help people in need.

Another example, proving the incredible power of followers, being able to raise billions thanks to a post on social media. “Z Event” is a charity project created by two French e-sports gamers, the purpose of their project is to gather gamers and facilitators specialized in games on the internet for a 50 hours-marathon. The event is live on the Internet and the goal is to financially support a charity. All the gamers talk about this event, post pictures and video on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Twitch1_{. In 2016, for} the first edition, Z Event project rise 170’000 Euro for the organisation Save The Children, one year later 500’000 Euro was donated to the Red Cross, and in 2018, they rise up to 1 Billion for Médecins Sans Frontières (ZEvent, 2018).

This momentum of kindness didn’t go unnoticed as these organisations posted appreciation messages to thank all the participants on social media.

• Payment slip

By the end of 2020, the money transfer in Switzerland will completely change. The idea is to harmonise the format and to use only one method, the QR code through Net-Banking or through a financial institution (Finance News, 2018). [Appendix 14: New payment slip] People will be able to pay bills via an online platform at home or on the phone. It won’t occur plenty of changes for individuals as the QR code will simply substitute the payment slip that we all know. Regarding organisations, the change will

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be more substantial as they will have to adapt their payment traffic software to ISO 20022 norm. Will this change have an impact on donations?

This new method may have a negative impact on donation at the beginning, as it will be a new system and most of the current donations are made through payment slip. However, as soon as people get used to the process, the number of donations could increase, as assumed, it will be quicker to make a payment orders, which could incentivise Millennials to donate.

• Saturation of the market

It is estimated that there are 10 million non-governmental organisations in the world. This number is growing every year and it generates complications such as operational management for organisations and choosing who to donate to for potential donors. Regarding operations on the field, it needs to be organized and managed as effective as possible, as the goal of all organisations it to provide aid to people in need. Any organisation cannot go to a war zone, install a tent and work without any coordination with other NGOs nor planification. Then, it’s difficult for potential donors to choose which organisation they would like to donate to. There is a “war” between organisations. For example, around Christmas period, every organisation wants to be the first to send emailing to households in order to gather the most donation possible and to get a bigger market share compares to others, which ask for donations as well. It creates confusion for the potential donor.

• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Came into effect on the 25th of May 2018, this new law focused on protecting “personal data” - meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier. According to EUGDPR.ORG: “Marketers must demonstrate how the data subject has consented to the processing of their personal data. Marketing databases have to be cleansed and reviewed to ensure that the organisation can identify consent which has been granted lawfully and fairly.” Even though, Switzerland isn’t in the European Union, it has to deal with donors from EU and worldwide. It may also reduce or stop the use of brokers (reference “segmentation methods” p.19) or other social media to acquire “idea profile” to target, which may impact donations.

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• European Union cutting funding

Since the 1st_{of January 2019, the European Union (EU) stopped financing 10 Swiss}

non-governmental organisations including Terre des Hommes, Caritas among others. Until last year, these organisations could hope, from the EU, a total of 50 million Swiss francs annually. According to the European Commission, the reason for this change is the lack of legal basis for reviewing its collaboration with these Swiss NGOs. It will impact the organisations on the short run, as for now, the organisations will have to carefully allocate its resources for operational work field, pay employees, so and so forth.

The future is not sealed yet as both parties are still open for discussion. However, on the long run, if the situation doesn’t improve, organisations will have to find more resources as it is a large amount of money pulled off overnight. (Agefi, 2019)

• Engagement

Organisations may struggle to move someone from the awareness stage up to the ultimate goal, the action stage. It takes time and effort to build loyalty. The pyramid so-called “ladder engagement” is a framework used to design deepen the engagement of a individual regarding an enterprise or an organisation.

Figure 3: Ladder engagement

Source: Emily Davis (2016) • Action: Donating 100 CHF to ICRC in order to provide food for a family of 5 for

a month;

• Desire: Signing a petition on human rights for Amnesty International; • Interest: Liking and commenting a MSF tweet on Twitter;

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In order to summarize the similarities and differences between the three different organisations interviewed, please refer to the following table:

Table 3: Similarities and differences of the 3 interviews

Regarding the results, Médecins Sans Frontières and Terre des Hommes are similar as they communicate via the same mediums and depend on individual donors, whereas the International Committee of the Red Cross is a particular institution, which is beginning to

2 _{Mailing, emailing to donors, billboard, website}

Criteria Médecins Sans

Frontières

International Committee of the Red Cross

Terre des Hommes Financed majority by States No Yes No Financed majority by individuals Yes No Yes Segmentation

methods RFM/Scoring Information not provided

Information not provided

Acquisition method

Brokers/Mailing to

households Information not provided

Brokers/Mailing to households

Traditional

marketing2 Yes Yes Yes

Social media3 Yes Yes Yes

The need of evolving with

technology

Yes

No (as it’s financed by states, which ensures revenue

stream)

Yes

Guideline to

choose pictures Yes Information not provided Yes Visual presence Yes Yes/No (less than its peers) Yes

ZEWO seal Yes No Yes

Usage of TWINT No No Yes

Possibility of tracking down donations No No No Type of campaign Integrated campaign, donor acquisition & donor

loyalty

Not yet

Integrated campaign, donor acquisition & donor

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diversify its revenue stream from states to the general public and focusing on Millennials through new campaigns in 2019. Médecins Sans Frontières is more on the response than on the proactivity for the moment, however it is slowly shifting, this year, the organisation will launch new projects as main themes, social media and Millennials. Regarding Terre des Hommes, a first mover advantage was set as it made available to donate through the mobile application TWINT (point explained later on) and it is also focusing on the Y generation for the current year.

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2.2 Survey

A survey has been conducted over 3 weeks focusing on different aspects such as the recognition of a certain humanitarian organisations, the trustworthiness of these latter, the actual donation situation, the reasons behind why Millennials don’t donate money, and the sensitivity felt on certain pictures. The targeted segment was Millennials only. The assumptions before starting the survey were the following:

Assumption n°1: If someone recognize the organisation’s logo or name, if this latter has

a good image and is trustworthy, then this person would donate.

Assumption n°2: Millennials are less sensitive to shocking images and may be suffering

from compassion fatigue.

The term “compassion fatigue” also known as “secondary traumatic stress (STS)” is generally used to describe a gradual decreasing of compassion for one another and can lead to depression, isolation, physical symptoms of insomnia, fatigue and increasing errors at the workplace (Jennifer Day & Ruth Anderson 2011). It impacts professionals who work directly with victims of disasters, trauma and illness. Attorneys, child protection workers can also experience this compassion fatigue by dint of daily working with difficult cases. Millennials may suffer, at some extend, the same symptoms as they might be less sensitive to painful pictures in the media as they are “used” to see it repeatedly. According to The Guardian (Elisa Gabbert, 2018) “Not long after compassion fatigue emerged as a concept in healthcare, a similar concept began to appear in media studies – the idea that overexposure to horrific images, from news reports in particular, could cause viewers to shut down emotionally, rejecting information instead of responding to it.”

Assumption n°3: Someone working full-time or part-time is more likely to donate rather

than a full-time student.

Assumption n°4: Millennials donate small amounts.

The survey was divided in different parts and was composed of 14 questions. [Appendix 15: Organisational chart of the survey] & [Appendix 16: Questions of the survey]

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2.2.1 Explanation of the questions

Question 1 to 4: About the demographic of the person responding (gender, age, current

employment situation and the location where they live), which helps to segment the answers, in this case for the Millennials living in the French part of Switzerland.

Question 5 to 7: About the recognition of 3 humanitarian organisations (Médecins Sans

Frontières, International Committee of the Red Cross and Terre des Hommes). Their position in Millennials’ mind regarding their influence, effectiveness, and other criteria. The answers contributed to know what aspects organisations should work on vis-à-vis of their image.

Question 8: Asked about how people get information about any organisations. If it was

on the street with billboards, at school, on social medias, so and so forth. This question reflects the medium organisations are currently using, and which one they should invest in.

Question 9: Asked if the respondent had already donated money to an organisation or

not. It helps to segment the pool in 2 categories, the one who gave and the one who didn’t.

If yes to the question 9:

Question 9a: To know which organisation is known from the general public.

Question 9b - 9c: If there is a relation between working, being financially stable and

donating.

Question 9d: Understand which donation method is used the most.

If no to the question 9:

Question 9a: What are the reasons why Millennials don’t donate.

Question 9b: Will they give when they would have a stable financial situation.

Question 9c: If the donation method is well explained or well known for the Y generation. Question 10: Giving suggestions on how to ease the donation process. To understand

what this particular generation wants.

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Question 12: To know if Millennials think that the current method of donating are long

or complicated and if the use of TWINT could be a good option to ease the donation process.

Question 13: To discover if Millennials has a misleading opinion on what percentage of

their donation go to the people in need and what percentage pays administrative expenses.

Question 14 – 14c: To find out if sensitive pictures affect people and if the phenomenon

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2.2.2 Analyse of the answers

The total number of answers were 140, narrowed down to the target: millennials and living in the French part of Switzerland were of 115.

Question 1: Gender

Over the 115 answers, 68 Millennials were women and 41 were men, which makes the majority of women with 59% and 41% of men.

Question 2: What is your birth year?

As showed on the graphic, within the Y generation age range (from 1980 to 2000), the answers were more focus on the end of the Millennials from 1993, which means people are still studying or about to finish to study and entering into the professional life.

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Question 3: Where do you live?

Within the 115 answers, 80% live in Geneva, 14% in the canton of Vaud, 3% each for Valais and Neuchâtel.

Question 4: What is your current situation?

In the sample, the majority of people interrogated were students (51%) then, people working full-time (24%) followed, by part-time student and part-time working (21%) and finally unemployed (4%).

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Question 5 to 7: Do you recognize these humanitarian organisations and what do you think of them?

We can see on the graph below that the three organisations combined has a good place in millennial’s mind. Organisations reflect trust, efficiency and usefulness. However, the results for the three last aspects regarding the recognition of the brand, Terre des Hommes is slightly higher than its peers, which means that more people don’t know the organisation nor find it effective.

The figures on the top of each column are the number of times which each aspect has been mentioned over the 115 people interrogated.

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Question 8: In general, what are your sources of information about organisations?

As Millennials are well-known to be digital natives, with no surprise, the first source of information about humanitarian organisations is through social media and on the Internet with 66 people mentioning it. Followed by billboards on the street in the second place and “in case of emergency” comes third. The fourth source is interesting as several years ago MSF did go to various schools in order to introduce the organisation, its purpose and its goal to pupils, but unfortunately due to financial reasons this activity had to be stopped.

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Question 9: Have you ever donate money to a humanitarian organisation?

Total answer 115; Yes 47; No 68

Over the 68 people who never donated to humanitarian organisations, 41 are full-time students, 14 are students and working, 12 are working full-time and 1 is momentarily unemployed.

Regarding the 47 people who already donated, 16 are working full-time, 10 are students and working, 18 are students, and 3 are momentarily unemployed.

Answering assumption number 3 - Someone working full-time or part-time is more likely to donate rather than a full-time student. - Looking at the explanation of the graphic, this assumption tends to be correct as there are more people working full-time or part-time (26) donating than full-time students (18).

Question 9 – If answered Yes to the question “Have you ever donate money to a humanitarian organisation?”

Question 9A: To which organisation?

Over the 47 people who had already donated, 31 different organisations were mentioned. The one which people gave the most to, was the organisation “Terre des Hommes” with 10 people mentioning it. Following by 6 other organisations which 3 people gave to. The other 15 organisations, not

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The fact that Terre des Hommes comes first with 10 people donating to, is interesting as from the question 5 to 7, people answered that Terre des Hommes was a name or a logo that they recognized but didn’t know what was its purpose, or didn’t know the change it was bringing to people in need, nor didn’t know the organisation at all.

Question 9B: How much did you give? (in total CHF)

As the result shows, 8 people gave within 1 and 29 CHF, followed by 12 people donating between 100 and 299 and finally 15 people gave in total between 39 and 59 CHF.

Unfortunately, after analysing the results and careful considering the question, the assumption number 4 -Millennials give small amount of money- cannot be verified, as the question asked the amount of money donated in total and not per donations.

Question 9C: At what frequency?

According to the answers, we can see that donations were mostly made spontaneously (46%) meaning that people only gave once. Following by people giving regularly every month or every year with 27% and people donating several times without any regularity with 27% as well.

This result support the point that Millennials prefer to donate whenever they want, with no further engagements (e.g. monthly direct withdraws).

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Question 9D: What medium did you use to donate money?

Still over the 47 people, who already donated, the method the most used is the payment slip with 28 mentions, following by the organisation’s website with 10 mentions. No Millennials call the organisation in order to donate, which is interesting as now donors of 60-80 years old still use this procedure.

The process of donating via a payment slip will change as by 2020, the payment slip will disappear. (point developed further on)

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Question 9 – If answered No to the question “Have you ever donate money to a humanitarian organisation?”

Question 9A: Why didn’t you ever donate?

Over the 68 people who never donated to humanitarian organisations, 58% of the pool responded that the main reason was because of lack of financial means. Following with more than 40% mentioning that they didn’t have any trust in organisations.

This point is interesting as 28 people over 68 don’t have any trust in organisations, which may impact their willingness of donating money.